Every living creature that got transported to this world has a qi main meridian formed inside which is also being called a core. This meridian can be placed in various parts of the body, for example, humans have it in their stomachs. The goblins, on the other hand, have them inside their heads. The placement of the core pretty much depends on the race.
What’s also special about the cores is that even after death they have some qi and life energy of the owner preserved inside. Because of that, they are treated as basic, nature made cultivation resources and are used to make rapid advancement in cultivation.
That makes them be also sought by everyone, so it is not a common thing among practitioners to kill each other for the sake of the core inside. Its especially true for those who got stuck in their cultivation, making cores of enemies one of the options to move forward.
That is one of the reasons why the path of cultivation is bloody and cruel. If you are not the one that got blessed by the talent in cultivation, there are not many other options to keep on living but to prey on those weaker then you. The world of cultivation is not only full of violence but unfair as well.
There are also human-made spiritual medicines that have the same or even better effect the naturally made spirit cores but to create those rare plants are required that are even harder to get. Not to mention a great skill in alchemy and the secret formula is needed as well. Cores are often also on if the ingredients of human-made spirit medicine.
At the end of the introduction there was a warning - PLEASE BE CAUTION - to absorb the spirit stones of other beings after defeating them one has to first learn the ability to detect the qi and manipulate it. Consuming the core before learning to detect and manipulate qi may end up in one’s own core bursting and painful death!
“That would explain a lot” sighed Leshy.
Following that was a description of how to circulate the energy in the body to awaken spiritual root. There was also a set of simple breathing techniques for qi detection and qi gathering.
The manual also described that at the stage of opening meridians there are not many different techniques on how to cultivate but once the root is awakened the possibilities are limitless. Scroll also mentions that there is no rule on how fast one can detect qi and awake spiritual root - for some it can take days, for others years.
At the very end of the scroll there was a welcome sentence “Welcome to the Ultima, may you rise with no end”.
Leshy found it to be very bizarre. It seems that many beings, probably more then just humans and goblins were transported to this world and were given access to supernatural powers.
But is there a reason why they got teleported here? What is the purpose of all of this?
No matter how hard Leshy cracked his mind, he could not answer this question or make any reasonable theory.
After that sentence, the scroll refused to unroll further even though there was still a lot of paper left. There was some kind of restriction in place in both of the scrolls when Leshy tried to open them fully.
It also made Leshy think “Why they do have such introduction scrolls on them and even some additional items like spear and telescope when I woke up into this world in just my underwear,” thought Leshy “The simplest answer is that I also received such bag of holding and it must be somewhere nearby”
Having thought that Leshy walked to the bedroom where he initially woke up and start digging through the pile of furs. It didn’t take long until he found a bag of holding. He quickly opened it and inside there was a scroll with the very same description on how to cultivate, that he found on the dead goblin.
However, this time Leshy was able to open the scroll fully. The hidden part had a description of humans as species - how advanced their society was, what were their general characteristics and traits. Humans were rated as below average in terms of general physical strength, however with above-average intellect.
At the end was a short description of how to access individual evaluation in correspondence to not only humans but all of the species present in “Ultima”. The evaluation represented how weak or strong one was and that was represented by assigning one of the categories from F,E,D,C, B, A to S.
There was also quick instruction on how to summon own card.
Leshy quickly followed steps form the instruction and soon in his hand appeared a grey card. The card had his image and quite a comprehensive description of Leshy. There was a quick history of his life, from the early days till now.
After reading for a while Leshy couldn’t help but think that whoever created those cards had a wicked sense of humor - and example of his college days description “ Leshy was an averaged student mostly because he spent almost no time studying and prefer drinking and trying to pick up girls instead. He was not particularly good in picking up part but in drinking, he truly excelled”
“Yep, that seems about right” though Leshy with weird smile and continued reading.
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After the text description, there was a quick summary in the form of bullet points about his strengths, weaknesses followed by abilities and short sections about defeated enemies.
Strengths:
- High comprehensive ability
- Good mental fortitude and endurance
- Above-average reflects and fighting instincts
Weakness
- No expertise in weapons
- Close to none survivability abilities
Cultivation/magic:
Spiritual root awaking in progress.
The main meridian opened
The initial low-level ability of detecting danger “The Sense” which reacts for example when if nothing changes the owner of the ability will die.
Verdict: Rank E-
Justification: Humans came from technology advanced planet, they are quite versatile but a weak race which places them in F+ category. Leshy’s abilities are better the average humans and his body is straightened by opened meridian which barley qualifies him in E- rank.
Recent log:
On the first day in Merge as F+ rank, he was able to defeat two F rank opponents, mostly due to the element of surprise. The same day, he unwisely ate goblin’s core which instead of killing him let him forcefully open his main meridians upgrading his relative strength to E-. Very surprising outcome. Heavens must truly have a special weakness for fools to let this one live.
“Now, that last comment was not necessary. Who writes those cards anyway?” said angrily Leshy “Anyway, it seems that thanks to the qi inside I am somehow stronger. That would explain why I felt so good after the meditation session” he concluded.
In the last category, there were two mini-cards of defeated goblins. Once Leshy opened them he could see all the details of goblins. Both of them were qualified as F thread. Worth noting was their race description as “one of the weakest but with great affinity to poison and fire qi”.
Both of them also had strange abilities - first had “Poison Resistance” and second had “Devourer” which allowed him to slightly better digest all kinds of food and enhances absorption of qi.
“I rather had that devourer ability myself, however all of the abilities do not seem to be of high profile. It’s more like a bit of additional characteristic than anything game-changing,” concluded Leshy. “I think the best idea is to check the corridor from where those goblins came from and try to find some source of water. It would be too dangerous if more of them will come” he decided after a few moments of thinking.
Leshy grabbed the spear for both protection and help in walking as the wound still painfully reminded him of its existence. He put both of the knives under his belt and lighted a torch in a fireplace. That equipped he very slowly started walking to the entrance to the apartment.
He passed the spot where he was hiding before and moved towards the bathroom. In the place of a bathroom, he could hear a whisper of flowing water, there was no light there so only thanks to the light of the torch he could notice a small underground stream.
He cleaned his hands and face, enjoying the icy but refreshing feeling of water.
“Well turn out, all I needed is to make a few steps in the darkness and water was there. I feel kind of stupid of not doing that sooner” ridiculed himself Leshy.
After refilling canteen, he stood up and walked to where the entry doors to the apartment supposed to be. There was no door, just another perpendicular corridor, which end had a dim of light around it. Leshy started walking and once he passed about 10-15 meter he enters a quite large room of about 50-60 meters square.
The room had few stone columns which were blocking Leshy's complete view. What he could notice is that half of the room was higher about 2 meters creating a landing and that part was directly connected to the corridor from which he just came in. To get to the lower layer one had to walked a few stair steps.
At the corner of the lower layer, there was a few meters wide door gate to the forest which was also the source of daylight in the room. Leshy directly walked to the stairs and after passing a nearby column he notices a fireplace below and a single goblin next to it. The goblin didn’t notice him yet as was cooking something over the fire. The smell was not bad.
Leshy wanted to move back behind the column to remain unnoticed but at that moment goblin sniffed, raised his head and looked directly at Leshy.
He probably expected to see his other two companions so there was a look of surprise on its face. Then his eyes focused on the spear that Leshy was holding and in a split second later the Goblin started running toward the cave wall.
Leshy also starting running after goblin and quickly realized what was goblin’s target - leaning on the wall there was a bow and short sword.
Leshy accelerated his steps to catch goblin before he was able to pick up weapons. The quick race was won by goblin as he managed to grab the sword before Leshy intercepted him. Goblin quickly turned to make a skillfully feint which used the weight of the sword to get him into combat position. It was all done in a fluid, practiced manner which gave goblin an intimidating air.